Making Black Girls Real: Reconstructing Black Girlhood in the U.S., 1861-1963 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Tammy Cherelle Owens IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Roderick A. Ferguson, Adviser June 2016 © Tammy Cherelle Owens 2016 i Acknowledgements After witnessing the toll of academia on the creative spirits, minds, hearts, and bodies of so many people of color that I have called colleagues and “real friends,” I now know that it is nothing short of a miracle that I made it to the other side (the end of the graduate program and dissertation journey) alive. Being able to stay alive throughout the process in order to write my own acknowledgements is a gift that I will cherish forever. However, this gift of living long enough to write my acknowledgements will cause grief from time to time when I think of my friend and others who did not live to write their own acknowledgements. So, I want to begin my acknowledgements by thanking Jesús Estrada-Pérez —a brilliant scholar, activist, writer, and teacher. Thank you for assuring me that I could make it through my preliminary exams, thank you for coming to my first “real” presentation on my dissertation, and thank you for allowing me to read your work when we worked together in the Center for Writing. There are so many other important moments that I want to name, but for now, I want to be sure to thank you for supporting me and the goals of so many students of color at the University of Minnesota. No matter how hard you try, you cannot complete a graduate program(s) or a dissertation without three essentials: supportive faculty, amazing friends/family who will go to the ends of the earth for and with you, and money (i.e. financial support from institutions). Because of God’s grace, I have had a modest amount of all three. I will forever be indebted to Doveanna Fulton and Brittney Cooper. I have no earthly idea of where I would be today if I never met you two in the Women’s Studies program at the University of Alabama. I know that you know that I really did not have a clue of what ii graduate school was or the faintest idea of how to succeed in academia. The only thing that I knew for sure was that I desired to use my writing to help black girls and women live better. Dr. Fulton, I thank you for admitting me into the Women’s Studies program. I also thank you for introducing me to the idea of studying and recovering black women’s voices in the nineteenth century. You and your courses taught me that I can be creative in my search for black women and girls’ histories. After years of being afraid of the deep- seated secrets of my own family history, working with you and learning how to unearth black women’s stories made me brave enough to go back in time and search the past. I would not know that I could study black girls historically if I never met you. I thank you for sharing your brilliance. I also thank you for always sharing your time. It’s amazing to me how no matter when I reach out to you for advice, you always make time to give me concrete strategies on how to move from point A to B. Dr. Cooper, I would literally be writing my acknowledgements for the rest of my life if I tried to put everything you have done for me into words. You were the first teacher to ever tell me that I was brilliant. You told me multiple times, but the two that stand out the most include the first time you told me (at the Sarah Lawrence College Women’s History month conference) and when you said it in front of our entire African American Intellectual Thought class. Teachers have shamed me in front of the class throughout my life for “being loud, fast, and country.” But no one had ever said that I was brilliant. No one had ever told me or believed that I could or should strive to be “tight” in my delivery of all my brilliance in the form of public speaking or writing. Thank you for seeing me. Thank you for introducing me to Black Feminism. Thank you iii for teaching an independent study course on black girls in the summer time. Thank you for introducing me to the work of Audre Lorde, Joan Morgan, and Ruth Nicole Brown. Thank you for listening to me, allowing and encouraging me to be myself. Thank you for picking up the phone and guiding me through my first year at the University of Minnesota. I was “low-key” terrified, but so excited about being in American Studies. I also thank you for your scholarship. I would reread your “Back-to-School Beatitudes: 10 Academic Survival Tips” like the bible throughout graduate school. I have secretly been trying to be “tighter” and make you proud since I graduated from the University of Alabama. I was extremely excited about entering the University of Minnesota, but I was also terrified about leaving the South without my friends/family and advisers who had truly changed my life. I could not have asked for a better adviser than Roderick A. Ferguson for the next step in my academic career. As I began to really learn the politics of graduate school and academia, I realized that my genuine excitement about learning and creative approaches to scholarship were presumed to be markers of my lack of training at the top ten schools. I learned that I was, in fact, not considered “creative,” but undisciplined in thinking, methods, and even speaking. Rod, I thank you for challenging me, but never seeking to discipline the creativity out of me. Thank you for great advisement and practical strategies for how to “assume power” no matter where I am, distance the voices of others from my writing space, and to never stop writing. I thank you for your patience and for not shaming me as I learned the ropes. Thank you for taking the time to do mind maps with me for new projects and chapters. I thank you for iv your scholarship. Thank you for always answering my questions regardless of how well I articulate them in the moment when I am filled with excitement about new ideas or theories. Thank you for always allowing and encouraging my excitement about the work. My graduate school journey would not be as successful if I did not have support from the other members of my committee— Jennifer Peirce, Zenzele Isoke, Ruth Nicole Brown, and M.J. Maynes. Jennifer, I am so happy that I took your personal narratives course. Your course had a huge impact on the way I read and think about texts, especially personal narratives. Because of your course, I am almost certain that I will write a book on poor southern black women’s personal narratives someday, and I will definitely send you a copy and thank you again in the acknowledgements. But for now, I want to thank you for your unmatched commitment to students. Thank you so much for always taking the time to listen to me, read my work, and offer amazing feedback. I also thank you for supporting me during two really tough times—my first year in the American Studies program and my transition to the University of Virginia. Thank you for helping me feel like I belonged and had support in the American Studies program (even when I was away on fellowship). Zenzele, I will never be able to repay you for your honesty and kindness during my first campus visit at the University of Minnesota. While I thank you for your scholarship and teaching, I also thank you for helping me learn how to survive/thrive in the Twin Cities as a woman of color. I thank you for helping me identify good people in Minneapolis to be a part of my community. The Sister Circles you invited me to were some of the most important steps in my journey to get free from years of baggage around v being black, southern, and poor. I needed those Sister Circles at that particular moment like I needed water. I’m not free yet, but because of those Sister Circles, I am bold enough to admit that black southern poverty has held me hostage and I want to be free. Dr. Brown, I think I have been thanking you non-stop since I met you! I have been thanking you for your scholarship, commitment to black girls, and for supporting me and my work. And, there is a good chance that I will write you several more thank- you emails because I would never have enough space within an acknowledgements section to express my gratitude for everything you have done for me. Thank you for inviting me to the inaugural Black Girl Genius Week in 2014. Thank you for believing that I needed to be there. Witnessing your relationship with your students and the way you do SOLHOT in schools with black girls took care of my soul when I returned to Charlottesville to finish writing my dissertation. Thank you for taking the time to send me words of encouragement to get through the dissertation. Thank you for telling me that my work is important. As cliché as it sounds, I am genuinely thankful for your existence, commitment to being human, or for you simply being you at all times.